Playing in the water

We went to the pool at the resort and then headed to the lake that was also at the resort.

What's This Thing Called Cable?

While on vacation, we found ourselves really enjoying cable, since we don't have it at home.  We would often find Little Guy in Papa's room watching TV together.  This particular night, the men decided to all hang out together.  Three generations of Reeses watchin' TV together.  How cute!

Hula Hoop Champs!

We headed to Florida with Grandma and Papa.  While at the Resort, they had a party  to welcome us.  At the party they had a hula hoop competition for the children and the adults.  Little sister won the children's competition and Mommy won the one for adults!  

On The Way To Florida...

Grandma and Papa stopped at our house before heading to Florida and celebrated the Oldest One's Birthday.  Thanks Grandma & Papa for the new clothes!!

Father and Son

We haven't posted in a while so there will be several posts to catch you up on the life of the Reese's. 

We went camping in October, since it rained the night before, we could only do a day trip.  Daddy got to play with his hunting gear, shoot his gun, and get his tree stand ready to hunt.  We cooked over the campfire and the little one and Daddy had fun cooking Daddy's hot dog.  Aren't they so cute?? (Notice the Camo pants on little guy!)

Cake Pops

For the Oldest One's Birthday, we made something called cake pops instead of a trditional cake.  We decorated the cheapest cups we could find with the cheapest pretty ribbon we could find (cost prob less than $3), filled them with rice (which is something you can reuse since you boil it before you eat it anyways) and did the cake pop recipe that Julie J sent us from www.bakerella.com  When I was making the first 1/2 of them (I did the first 1/2 one day and the rest of them the next day) I was sure I was going to 1. Hunt Julie down and hurt her for suggesting this awful time consuming mess of a project (have I mentioned I have had a bad heart with pregnancy hormones?!) 2. Never EVER make these again unless someone was paying me an absurd amount of money to do so, 

BUT, The second 1/2 of the batch, the next day, I was much more organized, was easy and manageable.  I don't know if I would go as far as to say it was fun, but it was close to it.  That was a hard week for me, I don't think I would have said anything good about anything that week, though.  

I will offer these bits of advice for those of you attempting these:

DO NOT USE FOOD COLORING.  If you do, it seizes up the chocolate bark and it is no longer smooth and shiny.  If anyone can explain why to me, I am actually interested to know.  In order to restore the chocolate, you have to add a small amount of vegetable oil, which didn't seem to alter the flavor any.

I would recommend double boiler over microwave heating for the chocolate.

Freeze the balls before you work with them and once you dip them in the brown chocolate, turn upside down and put a stick in (I used chopped off bamboo skewers), put them on top of a 13x9 cake pan filled with ice topped with waxed paper- it makes dipping the top much easier and doesn't leave little brown flakes of the cake in the white chocolate. 

The next time I make them, and yes, there will indeed be a next time, I think I am going to stick with balls, use only milk chocolate bark and just top with sprinkles (and maybe an m&m)

P.S. Thank you Julie for sending that email out suggesting these!  They taste INCREDIBLE!!!

GOOD NEWS! THANKS FOR THE PRAYERS

Shenley has had her MRI done and they said that as far as they could see from the preliminary results, there was no sign of it being caused by any pressure in her brain.  YEY!  They were able to get the results to us very quickly and relieved our fears of any brain problems.  They noticed that her left sinus was filled with fluid, so off we go to the pediatrician tomorrow morning to get her checked for a sinus infection.  The Radiologist mentioned that the anomaly they saw on her optic nerve could be something that started with a "D", but I couldn't remember what he said.  As long as there wasn't intracranial pressure, though, we were pretty relieved.  Once we hear from the opthamologist, I'll ask about the "D" thing.  So, we're waiting to hear from her and we'll update  this as soon as we hear something.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS.  YOU ARE A BLESSING TO US!!!!

LOVE,

THE REESES

And Gummy Bear Makes Four!

So, the doctor showed us the new baby on the ultrasound screen telling us that pip (that's what we call them before we know what the sex is) looked like a gummy bear.

After looking at the photos, we just had to agree with him!

Becky is 9 weeks 2 days pregnant today.

We told the girls yesterday.  Little Sister is beside herself with excitement, but Big Sister is acting too cool :)

Enjoy the pics!

Kids Say The Darndest Things

So, we were at a friends' house weekend before last and the little sister came out of her friends' bedroom with a dress up wedding veil on her head. She said "Look Mommy, I can see through this veil." I looked at her wondering what she was talking about and said "Well, yeah, honey, most veils are see through." Whereupon she replied, "No Mommy, We learned that in olden times, you couldn't see through veils." I looked at her puzzled and said that they had always been see through, and she corrected me again... "No Mommy, in my Sunday School class, they told me that the veil wasn't. You couldn't see through it."
It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about the veil in the temple! How cute! Good to know that she is paying attention in Sunday School. I really treasure these moments Praise the Lord for these times!!

Another funny moment happened a while ago when we started homeschooling. The little sister was mad about being homeschooled and thought it was some sort of torture we were putting her through. One night the little man was having a rough time and was crying and fussing alot. I looked at Daddy and said "He's been like this alot today, I don't know what his problem is!" Then little sister said "Well, He probably found out that he's gonna be homeschooled, that's why."
I laughed SO hard. PRICELESS!!!

Update Time!

A lot has happened since the last post. I will write the post and then add the pictures to go with it. Shawn and Becky actually got to go on a date:
Thanks to some friends, we got to head to The Factory and eat and visit the batting cages.
Becky's sister came to stay with us for about a week. We thought that she was going to stay with us for a while and get on her feet, but she decided to go back to the town in which she was living.
Grandma and Papa came to visit. We had lots of fun with them while they were here. We visited Aunt D's house and spent a lot of time at the pool.
This summer we have spent a lot of time at the pool. Until last week, we were spending an hour a day at the pool. The little guy and his sisters loved the water and mommy often had to leave with them begging (and the little one screaming) to stay. Because of being there frequently, Little sister has learned to swim without plugging her nose, under water. Big sister is now able to swim from one short side of the pool to the other. The little guy has actually learned how to swim with floaties on and actually would prefer to have them off. Unfortunately, we had an incident where the life guard was not watching him (our family was the only one at the pool and he was the only one that couldn't swim) in the pool, we no longer feel comfortable leaving him on the stairs without his floaties.
Big Guy and Little Guy found a toad! One night we were outside picking weeds and a big toad was jumping through the grass. Daddy caught it but the little guy was not fond of touching it. We eventually talked him into barely touching it. So funny!

I finally got back in here to do another post. I wasn't sure of the password so I had to look it up. So, We got this really cool photo software that allows some really cool editing properties!

I thought I would change the pictures that I had previously posted so you could see the difference.

We are still spending a lot of time at the pool. That has been our source of exercise this summer. The girls are getting more and more used to the water and are willing to take more risk. I think buying them goggles helped a lot, too

The girls have been learning spanish during the summer until we start homeschooling again sometime in August. I still have to buy the rest of the curriculum for them, but I need to check the second hand stores in the area like HomeLite and The Gathering Place.

I am still having to get up at night with the Little Guy since he has decided that he is not going to sleep through the night until he's 10 or something.

I have been thinking that this would be a good summer to go hang out with friends, but since the price of gas is so high, its like we have to spend most of our time at the house. It is truly ridiculous how much it is....

Well that's it for today. See you soon!

What a blessing our children are!

I just downloaded our camera to the computer and saw how cute the pictures of our children are! I thought I would share a few of them with everyone.

We were really excited that Watermelon season is here and that they are reasonably (sort of) priced. We did notice, though since the majority of them are seedless, watermelon just doesn't taste as good as it used to.

We have been spending a lot of time at the pool this week, but I keep forgetting to bring the camera with us. The youngest doesn't like to be held too much in the pool so we have to bring the floaty that is an innertube in a swimsuit and he'll make his way around the pool. He is fearless. Wonder what that will mean when he gets older??

We took the kids to the park that is close to our house. They really had alot of fun. The little guy was really brave and was able to do the little slide by himself. He couldn't figure out how he could get himself seated to slide down, so he decided to go headfirst. Here is a picture of them at the bottom of the slide.

Here she is showing off her muscles on the monkey bars. She was really good at it. She was almost better than me!

Some times we really enjoy taking silly pictures. This is one that we have taken recently.



















This is my first post, so I hope you all have enjoyed reading. I will try to post often!